The Battle of the Crucifixion

Evil was driven out of heaven and precipitously cast down (Revelation 12:7-12) (Luke 10:18) (Isaiah 14:12-16) (Genesis 3:1) (John 8:44). Evil was evicted but not defeated. The war against evil was incomplete - unfinished. Only the venue had changed from up there to down here. God dispatched Jesus from heaven to do battle against the monster of the Crucifixion here on earth.

The purpose of the battle was to produce a public demonstration of God. A description of God in words is a poor substitute for a demonstration of God in deeds. Descriptions of reality do not pack the same persuasive punch as intimate contact with the reality itself. Putting our fingers into the flames carries magnitudes more persuasive force than a warning that the flames are hot. Likewise, meeting God face-to-face is vastly more powerful than merely telling us about God. So the battle between Jesus and the monster was designed to show us God. In the battle, God was revealed to us. The battle reintroduced God to us. It extricated God from the enigmatic black box into which he had retreated after the fall of Adam and Eve.

The battle opened the book about God for us to read. It was a picture book.

The battle unfolded in three (3) distinct phases:

1) The building and the baiting of the trap,

2) The taking of the bait (Proverbs 16:4),

3) The springing of the trap.

The three (3) distinct phases assemble together into a single unit of apocalyptic revelation.

THE BUILDING AND THE BAITING OF THE TRAP

On the brink of battle with the monster of the Crucifixion, Jesus did something that no human general would do. He did something extraordinarily counter-intuitive (Isaiah 55:8-9). He disarmed. He defortified himself. He became one of us - an equal to us in our humanity - a partner with us in our suffering. The almighty made himself weak and, in weakness, his strength was made perfect (2 Corinthians 12:9). He doffed his invincible armor of divinity, donned our frail uniform of flesh and blood and, dressed like us, he entered the scrum at the line of scrimmage, cheek to jowl with us, toe to hoof with evil.

THE TAKING OF THE BAIT

The monster of the Crucifixion took the bait hook, line and sinker. The monster tortured and killed the God who loves us. It made the God who loves us suffer and die. It impaled the God who loves us on a cross as a fisherman insouciantly impales a live worm on a sharp hook where he hung until death.

THE SPRINGING OF THE TRAP

Jesus answered the evil that we did to him. However, he did not answer the evil that we did to him in kind. He did not give us a taste of our own medicine. He did not require "an eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot" (Exodus 21:24)(Matthew 5: 38-48). From his scabbard of prodigious love, Jesus drew the sharp sword of sweet forgiveness. With the sharp sword of sweet forgiveness, Jesus slew the monster of the Crucifixion. Forgiveness killed the monster dead (Jeremiah 31:31-34) (Luke 23:34 ) (Acts 10:43) (Matthew 6:12) (Matthew 18:21-35) (Luke 7:47) (Mark 11:25).

The greater was the gentleness of his answer, the greater is our astonishment over it. His answer gobsmacks us. It knocks us off our horse (Acts 9:4). It is the strongest force on earth. It gives Christianity its magic, Jesus his charisma, us, our joy and bishops and clergy the power to change the world. It creates the need to turn aside, like Moses, to see the great sight (Exodus 3:1-3). His answer is the Good News of Great Joy. The dial that controls his love for us is in his hands not ours. Moreover, it is set to the highest degree and is locked in place, Not even the evil that we did to him could budge it.

Jesus initiated the process of filling the earth with the knowledge of God as water covers the seas (Isaiah 11:9) (Habakkuk 2:14) (Jeremiah 31:31-34). However, he initiated the process in the boondocks of time and space - in the backside of the desert (Exodus 3:1-3). The knowledge of God, to have an effect, needed to escape its limited audience and its restricted geographical and temporal borders. The knowledge of God, however, does not propagate itself. It does not have its own legs. It is not self-propelled. Hence, the job of completing the process that Jesus started falls to us (Matthew 24:14). Our job is logistics, that is, to transport the knowledge of God from the point and place of its obscure origin, across time and space, to the children of Adam and Eve here and now.

The battle between Jesus and the monster of the Crucifixion is the package that holds the knowledge of God. Deliver the package then get out of the way so God can go to work.